Return to Lesbos. Valerie Taylor
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delicate looking, with long fair hair hanging thick to her waist, the way only a hip type would wear it in a year of tortured and teased bouffant styles. The other, older, had a sharp knife-blade profile, Turkish or possibly Indian. They weren’t touching one another, but appeared to be set apart in a little capsule of time and space, existing only for each other. Here, at least, they could look their love and not be afraid of what outsiders would think. Frances’s eyes stung with envy and pity. They were so young—and so lucky—and so much sorrow still lay ahead of them.
Bake wasn’t there, or Jane. She was both disappointed and relieved.
The door opened and shut behind a new couple, a tall thin girl in the standard getup of tapered slacks, knit shirt, and loafers, her friend a slight redhead like the young Edna Millay. Behind them, alone, stood a third who was familiar to her even through the eddies of smoke and the shifting figures passing and re-passing. Kay.
She stood still for a moment, lighting a cigarette, sizing up the place as she always did, indifferent to what other people thought of her. Feeling she had to talk to her, Frances started to slip down from the bar stool. But at that moment Kay caught sight of her, signaled a greeting with lovely dark eyebrows and made her unhurried way across the room. People moved to let her pass. Her hands were warm and light on Frances’s shoulders. She said, “Hello, darling!”
“Hi.”
“Bring your drink to a table.” Kay caught Mickey’s eye. Mickey came over with a smile of real welcome. “Those fellows are about ready to leave,” she said happily. “Martini for you too?”
“Right.”
They settled down, beaming at each other.
“Kay, tell me everything.”
“Well, Bake and Jane are still together. Your girl and my girl; it looks like it’s lasting.” Kay unbuttoned the jacket of her office suit and relaxed against the back of the chair. “Jane looks fine. They both do. Naturally I hate to admit it.” She grinned. “Bake’s more or less on the wagon, and they’re talking about buying a place in the suburbs.”
Frances went silent. Three years with Bake, then the stormy breaking-up; had it all simmered down to this? Her throat hurt. She picked up her glass, seeing her hand tremble.
Kay went on talking. “I’m in the midst of packing. Got a government job in Iran. I’ve been cleared by security and everything, it’s lucky we don’t have as much trouble as the boys—if a boy looks the least bit swishy he’s had it, even if they can’t prove anything.”
“You’re going alone?”
“Sure. Maybe I’ll find somebody over there.” Kay accepted a glass from Mickey and gave her a dollar bill and a warm smile. “Losing Jane hit me pretty hard. I’ve played around a little, but it wasn’t the same. So I decided it was time for a change of scenery.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“So what’s with you? I suppose you’re not 100 percent happy or you wouldn’t be here. Or are you slumming?”
“I’ve done my best,” Frances said. She was thinking out loud; the bitterness in her voice came as a surprise to her. “You know, my husband took me back the day our son got married. He was so noble and so forgiving—Christ, I’ve gone on being forgiven for a whole year now, and I can’t take much more of it! I don’t think he realizes yet, but it can’t go on. I’ve worked like hell for a year—”
“And what have you got to show for it?”
“A whole lot of nothing.”
Now it was in words. She had not been able to admit it before, even to herself, but Kay’s eyes demanded honesty. She said again, confused but insistent, “I did try.”
“And how’s your son?”
“Fine. It’s his first wedding anniversary today. He’s still in college—just finishing his freshman year.” Frances hesitated. “They’re going to have a baby in the late winter. I hate to think about it.”
“Oh well, you married young. You’re a good-looking girl, Francie.”
Frances shrugged. “It does me a lot of good.”
“No fun in bed? With Bill, I mean?”
“It’s the same old rabbit routine. He’s finished before I start to get warmed up.”
“And you haven’t looked for anybody else?”
“Honest I haven’t.” This was serious. It was important that Kay know she had done her best—if it hadn’t worked out, someone else was to blame. She shook her head to clear it. “I’ve truly tried.”
“I’m sure of it.” Kay’s voice was gentle. “The trouble is, Francie, you’re gay. What you had with Bake wasn’t just a bored housewife having a fling—I know that’s what your husband thinks. It was the real thing. You belong on our side of the fence, 100 percent.”
“I know it now.”
“I married a man too, you know. It’s true my husband was a son-of-a-bitch, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve never wanted another man.” She looked hard at Frances. “I honestly don’t think an unhappy marriage ever made a lesbian out of any girl. It just brings out what’s already there.”
“You left your husband to be with Jane, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I’ve never been sorry. It was worth it.”
Frances sighed. “Maybe you’re smarter than I am. I thought I could make a go of marriage.”
“Maybe you could if you’d thrown away your whole personality, everything you are and could be. I think that’s evil.” Kay reached across the table and touched her hand. “So what happens next?”
Frances’s smile was strained. “So now Bill’s being transferred out to the boondocks, and I’m supposed to go along and be a good little company wife. He’d be shocked to death if I told him I didn’t want to go.”
“Are you going?”
“How can I help it?”
“Sooner or later you’ll have to face up to it. You’ll meet a girl you want. It always happens. The only thing that surprises me is, it hasn’t happened already. Then how are you going to break the news to him?”
Frances said unbelievingly, “In Waubonsie, Illinois?”
“Anywhere you go,” Kay said patiently, setting down her drink, “you’ll find members of the club. Carefully disguised of course, you have to be discreet in a small place, you can’t keep your business and personal life separated the way you do in a big city. But you’ll find somebody you want to have an affair with. Believe me.”
“Will you? In Iran?”
“If I don’t, I’m coming back the minute my contract’s up.” Kay grinned. “Arab men are famous for it. That must leave the women with a lot of free time on their hands.”
Frances said in a low voice, “My contract’s for life.”
“That’s not a contract, that’s a prison sentence.” Kay raised her eyebrows. “Moving isn’t going to make a goddamn bit of difference. Gay in a straight world and hip in a square one. We ought to be glad we’re white, that’s one problem we don’t have anyhow.”
Tears came into Frances’s eyes and spilled warm and wet down her cheeks. She gave a little quavering sigh like a child’s. “Kay, I’m so miserable. I don’t know what to do.”
“Make up your mind,” Kay said. She beckoned to Mickey, who was waiting with two more drinks. “The thing is to decide what you are and then learn to live with yourself. Don’t try to make yourself over. There’s no percentage in it.”
Frances stared at her glass. She said